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by houndinghell



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Gen, Minor Plot Spoilers, Pre-Relationship, Spoilers for MacCready's personal quest, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 16:35:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5341007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houndinghell/pseuds/houndinghell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>MacCready is in the business of getting paid for shooting people, and he's pretty fond of that. That doesn't mean he's willing to go along and shoot people without knowing exactly why he's getting paid for it, or who he's supposed to be shooting, specifically.</p>
<p>So if his new employer would just make an expression and spill the beans, that'd be peachy.</p>
            </blockquote>





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**Author's Note:**

> I walked into this game full expecting to romance actual angel Preston Garvey. And then this jerk showed up and here I am--minus one Minuteman boyfriend, but plus one nerdy merc boyfriend. So it goes.

MacCready watches his new employer out of the corner of his eye as they sit under a shallow outcropping of rock to avoid the weak sunlight, sipping at some purified water and catching their breath. Or more accurately, his new boss is catching her breath. Vault dwellers. They were as clueless about the real world as they were soft, no way around it. Nine times out of ten, you’d find they were way more trouble than they were worth, too, and the tenth only barely broke even.

At least she broke even. She’s paying him well--fifty caps less than he’d hoped, but he’s still two-hundred caps richer than he’d been when he woke up. Even better is the fact that she isn’t completely stupid. Most vault dwellers can’t find a trigger without an instruction manual, let alone figure out how to pull it. She seems to know where the business end of a gun was and isn’t even a half-bad aim. She’d managed to pick off a couple raiders an hour or so before with the pistol strapped to her hip, and had barely hesitated about it. He’d been paid less to work for worse people.

He watches her scan the empty woods for another minute before giving in. “So, boss. You haven’t actually said what you hired me for. Is this protection detail, me watching you skip around the Commonwealth and pick up garbage, or are we going after something a little more specific here?”

She turns her head to look at him with the same flat, serious expression she’s had since she first stepped into the backroom of the Third Rail. Barely a single damn- darn emotion all day, like her face got stuck that way and she forgot how to fix it. Being pinned down by that kind of listless gaze is unnerving to say the least. If he didn’t know that synths were made to be as lifelike as possible, he might mistake her for one.

“My name is Holly,” she corrects him absently in her quiet, steady voice. In the confined space it seems louder, though. “You should call me by it.”

“Yeah, sure thing, boss. The mission?”

She lifts her gaze up to the sky in some approximation of an eye roll--he thinks that’s what it’s supposed to be anyways--but doesn’t correct him again. “A few things. I need someone to watch my back. I’ve got some people, but they’ve got their own stuff to take care of. I need someone who won’t be so… Distracted.” Her mouth twitches, like it’s trying to frown but can’t manage it in the cement block of her face. “Maybe busy is a better word. Anyway, I’m the General of the Minutemen now, apparently-”

“Those guys are still _around_? Well, shi-oot.”

Holly gives him a look but doesn’t comment on his self correction. “Barely. I helped them out of a tight spot and got a promotion for it. I’m trying to put it back together. Maybe we can get people to help each other out a little more. Make this place safer for people.” She pauses, like she’s about to say something else, and then just takes a swig of her water instead. Moments pass and keep on passing without her adding to it, that unsaid _something_ hanging awkwardly between them. He starts to drum his fingers against the barrel of his rifle, counting every time he gets around to tapping his thumb again.

By the time MacCready gets to twenty, there’s an annoyed twist to his mouth. He leans back against the rock, ignoring the way the chill seeps through his coat, and shakes his head at her. “A little tip--finishing answering people’s questions is a good idea if you want to keep your people on your side and trusting you. I’m no ‘save the world’ kinda guy, I don’t buy that morality crap. That’s not your whole angle. What am I pointing my gun at that you’re not telling me about, huh?”

Holly lets out a slow breath, like she’s trying to keep it from becoming a sigh, and leads her elbows forward onto her knees. Her dark curls slip across her face, cutting off the line of vision between them. Another few moments tick by. Then: “I need to find my son. He was taken from me. I think… I think the Institute has him. Whatever they are.”

Her voice is calm and he can’t see her face, but she can’t hide the way she’s curling her hands into fists so tightly her knuckles are turning white, or the way her shoulders and spine are as taut as a tripwire. She can’t even keep her feet still--she’s grinding one heel into the mud so that it cakes onto her oversized boot.

“And you only paid me two-hundred caps?” he grumbles to himself. He shakes his head again, raising his voice to a normal volume, “You really think you can go up against the Institute? You need an army for that, at least. You’re out of breath taking a stroll through the woods! This isn’t exactly easy stuff you’re talking about.”

Still, MacCready stays where he is, sitting on a rock with his legs sprawled out, watching Holly carefully. He can’t deny the way that something in his chest is squeezing tight--that same part of him that lights up whenever he gets a little closer to Duncan, or risks pulling out the wooden soldier Lucy treasured so much. The part of him that always gets obnoxiously warm and soppy when he sees another parent trying to watch after their kid. He admires that in people, more than he’d ever admit to.

“I don’t care if you think I can or not,” she snaps, her voice dropping down so cold he’s a tempted to shiver. She still doesn’t look up, but he thinks if she did, there’d be something there now--a glare aimed right at him, deadly as a bullet. “He’s my son--I’m going to do it. I have to. If this isn’t your kind of gig, then give me my caps back.”

He raises his hands in the air defensively, eyeing her much more warily now. “Hang on now, I didn’t say nothing about that. I’m still sitting here, aren’t I? Not running. You paid me, so I’m your man. That’s the deal. Just wanna make sure you know what you’re doing, boss. Gotta know what you’re committing to.” Even if she doesn’t, she might just have the gumption to say screw it and do it anyways. With that kind of ferocity, she might even succeed.

The ferocity sputters out, however, as she slumps forward a bit and sighs, lifting one hand to cover her eyes. “Sorry. I’m still pretty on edge. It’s been… a rough couple weeks, to put it mildly.”

“I can imagine.” It doesn't take a lot of effort. He knows that kind of desperation that drives you absolutely crazy. He left his son alone, didn't he? Abandoned him in the hopes that  _maybe_ he could find a cure and get back to Duncan before it was too late, because the alternative of living with himself if he didn't try at all was worse. MacCready swallows hard with an audible  _click_. “Well. Whatever I can shoot to help you get closer to your kid, consider it dead. I guess I’ll be aiming for lots of robots and ferals and mutants--oh my.”

She makes a strange, loud, hoarse sort of sound, and it takes a second for MacCready to realize that she’s laughing. Coughing up a storm while she does it, but between that is bubbling, startled laughter. She tips backward against the rock with the force of it, and though she tries to cover her mouth, she can’t hide the bright grin on her face entirely.

“So you _can_ make expressions! It’s a fu- a friggin’ miracle! I was starting to think your face froze that way.” It’s not remotely funny, but for some reason, it makes her laugh even harder, which makes him grin even wider.

After a minute, she catches her breath and smooths the happiness out of her face again as best she can. But there’s a trace of it caught in the twitching of her mouth and left over in the tiny sparks of something in her rich brown eyes. “Asshole,” she says.

"Yes ma'am," he says, making a show of touching the brim of his cap with his fingertips. “Practically certified.”

Another upward tilt of her eyes as she polishes off her bottle of water, but she can’t fool him. There was another spasm in the corners of her lips, he saw it, clear as day. She pushes herself to her feet and swings her bag over her shoulders. “C’mon, MacCready. Let’s go. We’ve got places to be. Things to shoot.”

He clasps his hands over his heart and flutters his eyelashes at her. “And here I thought you’d never ask.”

“Come _on,_ MacCready.”

“Alright, alright!"


End file.
